Wednesday, 9 January 2013

Benefit reform

I see everyone is up in arms about "benefit reform". The latest numbers show that apparently, 97% of benefits don't go to people who don't contribute to benefits, whether they be severely disabled, orphans, third-generation benefit scroungers or whatever.

So actually, most benefits go to people who work.

Just think about that for a moment. You work to stay alive, you're a productive member of society, but you're still not earning enough to make ends meet. And what is the government's answer? A massively complicated and unreliable system of tax credits to give you some of your money back if you jump through a bazillion hoops.

Surely, SURELY, no-one can dispute that it would be much easier for all concerned if the the worse-off were simply taxed less in the first place?

Why exactly is it that we can't just stop tax credits and replace them with lower taxes for poorer people?

And why exactly was that great hero of the people, Gordon Brown, not vilified for the monster he created?

Could it be the blindness of statists to the many failings of state?

Lower taxes mean more money in pocket without the stress of proving you need it to some interfering busybody who is sponging off your work.

Everybody thinks about "good taxes", where rich, arrogant bankers pay for the upkeep of the needy. Nobody thinks about the fact that minimum wage workers help to subsidise train fares for Surrey stockbrokers or pay for overloaded European vehicles to destroy our roads, etc. Nobody worries unduly about people struggling to clothe and feed their kids when they demand that we subsidise EU boondoggles.

Tax ISN'T just a "good thing". Think about that the next time you demand more of it.

12 comments:

Spot on with your observations there Obnoxio.It's only because the fecking lefty control freaks want to pick their noses into everyone's (but their own) lives we have this convoluted tax system.As for the Fruitcake frae Kirkcaldy?Well he certainly stitched up all those who thought the Labour Party was about caring for the working classes.That traitor Tony Wot's His Name turned it into a version of the Young Conservatives.Whilst Cast Iron is just continuing Bottler's policies.Feck 'em.

The thinking behind it is you can only cut someone's tax bill once, and the public are notoriously ungrateful (how much credit does the coalition get for raising the tax threshold?). Tax credits are the government constantly giving you money. From the magic money tree in the enchanted socialist forest.

Politicians and the civil service worry that there could be a majority of the population for whom income taxes become irrelevant if they raise the tax thresholds. There is a consequent fear that "government" becomes irrelevant too (as if that hadn't already happened for most of us, apart from their intrusive regulations and robbery with violence).

The bonus for the civil service is that it takes over 150,000 of the buggers to administer the robbery and the grudging patronage of tax credits.

Some of us can see it for what it is. For what it's worth, I'm in the worst of worlds. I have a poorly paid job in the private sector, with no opportunity of advancement or job security. I do not qualify for Tax credits and, after the bills are paid, live on the same amount of money someone on Job-seekers allowance gets.

What it comes down to, at the end of the day, is exactly what Mitt Romney said about the 47%. Anyway roll on the global financial collapse. Maybe, when this fiat bullshit monetary system is destroyed, so too will the entitlement state.